Will the Bhutto Assassination Impact the primaries?

Will the events of December 27th, 2007 impact the upcoming U.S Primaries?

Some delude themselves into thinking, “Only the GOP Primaries, and those obsessed with fear of terrorism.”

That is the kind of nonsense to be expected of the grossly and willfully ignorant among us.

As they say, “Only in America!”

In Pakistan a group of female Muslim extremists, who’ve taken over two libraries, in response to the razing of a number of radical mosques, know the deal.

What would it take to get them to end their protests, short of their deaths? According to the women, nothing short of rebuilding the Mosques and making Pakistan a Muslim state. One of the women also lamented that Britain and the United States want to eradicate Islam.

Those Americans who don’t understand the “War on Terror” (WoT) would tell that woman, “We don’t want to eradicate Islam at all, at least not most of us.” Of course, those folks would be WRONG, yet again. In fact, that Pakistani female extremist is absolutely right, we DO WANT to eradicate strict Sharia-based Islam, HER Islam, and it’s not merely “some politicians,” or even “only Republican politicians,” it’s Corporate America and the people funding the campaigns of ALL the major politicians running for 2008!Those people KNOW that Jihadist primitivism and the modernist West cannot peacefully coexist...and they intend to act on that reality.

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In fact, strict Sharia-based Islam ("radical Islam" or Jihadism) is not only incompatible with Western principles, but more fundamentally it is diametrically opposed to the commercialist consumerism that is the hallmark of the modern West's regulated market-based economies. Neither side can simply "live and let live," because the other is so pernicious, so damaging to the other's cultural view.

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So how can a group of Islamic extremist women get it, while so many Americans and Western Europeans don't? Perhaps because the former live it daily, while the latter deliberately don't want to "get it."

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Strict Sharia-based Islam is part of the primitive worldview, the tribalist worldview, that sees an interconnectedness of mankind that transcends national borders, language and culture and sees the individual as both subordinate to and devoted to the group, tribe or hive, which in turn is duty-bound to protect and nurture its members. Communism/Socialism is part of that primitive tradition, dressed up in new terms ("scientific socialism," etc.) and like strict Sharia-based Islam, it is at odds with the modern culture, ushered in by the likes of Adam Smith and America's Founders, one based on INDIVIDUAL Liberty, the sanctity of private property, limited and localized governance and the idea that the individual's RIGHTS are innate, or "God-given," rather than bequeathed by government.

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There can be no peaceful coexistance between the primitives (tribalists and hivists) and the moderns (the individualist and lone wolves) becuase their worldviews are in fundamental conflict. So, even though the scourge of global jihadist Islam is a "new" challenge to the moderns, it's an old one, in that it mirrors the Communist (Mao & Pol Pot) and Socialist (Hitler & Stalin) challenges of a generation ago.

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So will the assassination of Benazir Bhutto impact the U.S. Primaries? At this point it’s really hard to tell, other than to note that for the time being, it’s brought the reality and relevance of international terrorism back to the forefront in America.
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What’s unclear however, is for how long?
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In the short-term it would seem to boost Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton, over their less experienced rivals, but for how long?
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Or perhaps one could ask, “What else will it take to make Americans once again take terrorism as seriously as they need to?"